


Tea and Company

by fightthosefairies



Category: Supernatural
Genre: 15x09 Coda, 2021!AU coda, A ghost story of sorts, Body horror (minor), Dean Has Visions, Dean Winchester feeling things more acutely than any human being should be allowed to, Dean is haunted, Emotional torment, Guilt, I'm a big meanie, M/M, Psychological Horror, The Trap coda, but I had to get this stuff out of my head, survivor's guilt
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-04-27
Updated: 2020-04-27
Packaged: 2021-03-02 01:08:01
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,477
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23876671
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/fightthosefairies/pseuds/fightthosefairies
Summary: Dean receives a visit from an old ghost, and meets a new one in the making.
Relationships: Cain & Dean Winchester, Castiel/Dean Winchester
Comments: 1
Kudos: 16





	Tea and Company

**Author's Note:**

> I've been working on this fic, off and on, for the last 2 1/2 months, which is a pretty significant stint for me, since I ran headlong into a writer's block wall that lasted oh ... three years? I've also had health stuff to deal with and stress over (which doesn't help at all - not to mention the quarantine stuff - oof), but I just really needed to get this on paper so these visions would stop haunting me.

## “I’m sorry, son.”

  
When Dean opens his eyes, his field of view is filled with the floor of a barn he hasn’t seen in years, pieces of hay strewn about across the tapped-out earth. Lifting his head, he finds himself kneeling in the enormous devil’s trap they’d carved into the packed dirt. A trap, meant for him.  
  


Where the father of murder had once paraded his future failures before him one by one. His destiny, scrawled in the fresh, red blood of his loved ones. Ghosts of mayhem to come. _  
_

_Then you'd kill the angel, Castiel. Now, that one ... that, I suspect, would hurt something awful..._

In a single stroke, Dean had relieved him of his weapon as well as half his arm, left him gaping at the hunter in shock. But here Cain stands, now, as whole and untouched as if Dean had never sought him out.   
  
If only.

 _To be what you are, to become what you've become, is a **stain** on their memory_...

Cain stands by the window, sipping tea from a delicate porcelain teacup, his hand gently cradling the saucer with its fine, scalloped edge. The teacup and its mated saucer are decorated with pale pink roses, the sides of the cup strewn with delicate, winding vines and rosebuds.  
  
_It must have been hers,_ Dean finds himself thinking, only to kick himself immediately the very next second. Because Cain is gone, dead, and there’s no reason to try to understand a dead man...  
  
“What?” He asks, because he honestly doesn’t know what else to say.  
  
“You were right. I’d give anything for that not to be so, but it’s the truth. You were right.”  
  
“About what?”  
  
“That, ultimately, no matter how much you may have loved him, something deep down inside you knew that you would destroy him. It’s your way. Our way.”  
  
Dean knows on a fundamental level that Cain isn’t referring to his brother. He gulps around the knot trying to tie itself at the back of his throat and lowers his gaze. “Heh. Yeah. It’s in our blood, right? We’re --”

“Poison. Yes,” Cain’s response is immediate, certain, but his gaze is still faraway. “You knew that the moment you set eyes on him for the first time. It struck you, as surely as you struck him that night with the demon blade. He terrified you and you wanted him more than anything you’ve ever known in your tragic mortal life. So much, you could barely catch your breath, for _days_ after. You lusted after an angel of the lord and dragged him down to your filthy, human level every chance you got.”   
  
“I didn’t -- I didn’t mean --” Dean begins softly, hesitantly, the words getting caught in his throat, hot tears welling in his eyes.   
  
“Didn’t you? You took him away from his father, first chance you got. Tried to make him yours, more like you. Like he belonged,” Cain murmurs, his eyes straying down to the cup and saucer cradled so delicately in his large, rough hands. “Like he belonged to _you_.”  
  
“I was trying to save us, save all of us,” he whispers, shaking his head even as he bows it, gaze returning to the hay-strewn floor. “I -- I thought if --”  
  
“If it was divine magic, he’d be all right? He’d be protected, somehow, because he’s made of the same stuff?” Cain asks, but from his tone, it’s clear he already knows the answer to his own questions.   
  
“I didn’t know what else to do,” Dean says, a vicious shiver coursing through him, then. “I - I thought he’d be strong enough. I hoped he’d --”  
  
“He was strong enough,” Cain agrees, moving over to the small table beside the window, where a full tea set sits, steam wafting from the teapot’s spout as he refills his cup. “Just strong enough for it to take, for it to turn to him to its own purposes. Didn’t hope for that, now, did we.”  
  
Cain’s words cut into him as surely as a cold blade and Dean feels another shiver raking over him as he lifts his head, dares to look.   
  
Castiel’s eyes are as blue as ever, but they are still all wrong: the fine traceries of blood vessels are black instead of red, delicately spidering across the surface of his eyes and beyond. The damaged vessels fill his eyes and spill out onto his face, winnowing into the crow’s feet at the corners and down his cheeks. He stands there at Cain’s side, hands hanging relaxed and loose, eyes filling with grace, brimming over with it, the very essence of the angel slipping from his eyes and rolling down his cheeks as Dean watches.   
  
“He begged you to stop, but he was never strong enough to tell you no, was he, son,” Cain rumbles, taking another sip of his tea before replacing the cup in its saucer. His hand strays up, thumb and forefinger smoothing over his mustache and beard. “Of all of them, you hoped he’d be the one to tell you no and mean it. Not like your brother and not like that groveling glad-hander Fergus Crowley nor his harlot of a mother. You hoped he’d be strong when you weren’t. When you couldn’t be. You counted on it.”   
  
Castiel picks up a small sugar bowl and cradles it in one of his strong, graceful hands while his other reaches for the tiny silver tongs to fish out a small, white cube and delicately deposits it into Cain’s cup as he holds it out to the angel.   
  
“But he could never tell you no, even if it meant putting his own existence at risk again and again. Ishim called you his human weakness, but ... you knew that already. You know that you’re his only _true_ weakness,” Cain says, looking over at Dean with a strangely fond smile. “Every time he failed, he failed because of _you_. Because he couldn’t bear to ever see you come to harm. Time and time again, his desire to keep you safe made him pull his punches, second guess his tactical genius in favor of protecting you and your brother.”  
  
“No, I -- I never asked him to -- I never asked him to _do_ that!” Dean chokes out, feeling a piercing pain in the center of his chest that had him doubling over, eyes welling with tears.   
  
It’s then, finally, that his ancestor by blood that had traveled through the furthest reaches, leagues away from where they were, now, finally meets his plaintive, panicked eyes.  
  
“Oh, Dean. My boy. You never had to ask,” Cain says softly, brows pinched with pity as he gazes at his great-great-only-Chuck-knows how many generations-great grandson. “He never wanted you to have to. It’s why he made that deal with Crowley, to save the world, so you wouldn’t have to walk away from your new, peaceful daydream of a life in the suburbs. It’s why he took the Mark. Why he lied and told you that you couldn’t take it again.”  
  
“W... what?” Dean’s voice sounds small and scared, even to his own ears. “No. No, that’s -- that’s not what he s -- that’s not what he said. That’s not true!” His gaze tears away to Cas, swaying ever so gently as he stands there, as placid as a puppet. “You didn’t -- Cas, you didn’t lie to me. Tell me it’s not true! You...”  
  
Cas slowly blinks milk-white eyes at him, head ever so subtly tilting in a faint mirror of his Castiel’s familiar questioning posture. It makes Dean shake his head, roughly, denying with all his heart, tears streaking hot against his skin.   
  
“You didn’t know.” Cain murmurs, staring into his cup, watching the contents make flickers of light in the bowl of his tiny silver spoon. Far too delicate for his rough, work-worn hands. Dean thinks he remembers seeing the man, clad in his head-to-toe beekeeper’s suit the day they first met, hammering a beehive together as he and Crowley approached. “He wanted to spare you from that. Even then. He sacrificed himself, _for you_ , **_again_** -”  
  
“No --!”  
  
“And you let him go. You let him go through with his mad plan because you’re too much of a craven coward to take possession of what’s always belonged to you --”  
  
“He’s not --” Dean plants his hands on the mealy ground and struggles to push himself to his feet, but he’s weak as a kitten and can’t budge from his spot. Gritting his teeth, he feels more tears gathering at the corners of his eyes. “Stop saying that! He’s not mine, you sonofabitch! He’s an angel of the Lord.”  
  
“You really think he’s been God’s this whole time? Dean,” Cain tisks at him with obvious disappointment. “I think we both know better than that.”  
  
“It’s not true,” Dean whispers, eyes squeezing shut as he sees Castiel begin to take deliberate steps towards him. Unlike any zombie or undead thing he’s ever ganked, though, Castiel now moves with the utmost poise and precision, seeming almost to glide towards him instead of walk.  
  
“Dean...” Cas’s voice is soft, but sounds faraway, somehow - like he’s speaking to Dean from the bottom of a well or some gigantic metal sewer pipe. More white, softly glowing tears roll down his cheeks, catching on the corners of his mouth and dripping from his chin as he gazes down at the hunter.  
  
“Cas, please -- tell me it’s not true! You didn’t -- you didn’t do that for me. Not for me!” Dean whimpers, fingers clawing at Castiel’s shoe, his pant leg, anything he can get a hold of. Dean uses those hand holds to pull himself upright again, glassy, pleading eyes gazing up at the angel.   
  
Castiel lowers himself to his knees before Dean, and the fondness that should be there simply isn’t. It’s the cold, lifeless void that used to be Cas’s grace. And that realization hits Dean like a fist to the forehead.  
  
He remembers what that felt like. Like falling with nothing to land on, nothing to ever stop it. Free, but still and empty for all of that freedom. He’d mocked his brother’s attempts to save his life, his very soul, he’d beat Cas to within an inch of his life -- but still -- something had stopped him in that moment, that day. Even at his lowest, with no end in sight, _something had stopped him._  
  
Something that made him shift the downward trajectory of his blade so that it connected with the pile of books next to Castiel’s left shoulder instead of the center of his chest, where he’d intended to plunge the blade all along. Something had stayed his hand. Something had stayed Cas’s hand, too, when he’d been moments away from driving his angel blade into Dean’s heart, thanks to that bitch Naomi’s meddling.  
  
“Dean...” Cas breathes again and he reaches out, his fingers gently curled as he brushes his fingers against Dean’s cheek, so very softly. “It was you. It was only ever for you...”  
  
The words are all he’s ever hoped to hear, and yet they sound hollow, they sound _wrong_ , and something turns sour in Dean’s stomach. The monotone register should sound familiar, but doesn’t - isn’t - because it lacks any of the exasperated fondness or warmth Dean’s come to expect when speaking to the angel.  
  
“The Mark is a curse. A very ancient one, true, but a curse nonetheless. A curse isn’t like influenza. You can be cursed again,” Cain enumerates for him patiently. “This was his last gift. His last opportunity to ensure you got the storybook ending you've always dreamed of. A world with no more monsters and no more God pulling your strings...”  
  
Dean wrenches his gaze away from Cain’s woeful bloodhound eyes and looks back at Castiel, finding him still staring as though he never stopped. He probably hadn’t. Even as Dean watches, more runners of white begin dripping from Castiel’s ears, his nose, the corner of his mouth, and Dean tries to recoil, twist out of his reach, but he’s pinned to the spot.   
  
“Cas... _please_...” He tries one last time, and he can taste the bitter salt of his own tears as he licks his lips. He _has_ to try. Because that last time always seems to make the difference, doesn't it? Because he has to keep fighting, he has to save --  
  
“Dean,” Cas whispers, his lips parting, more blue-white grace spilling out as those large hands cradle his face, pulling him in closer. The grace dribbles down his chin, makes his words come out in a half-drunken slur. It sounds like he’s drowning. “ _Kiss me..._ ”  
  
Dean chokes on nothing as he bolts upright out of bed with a ragged gasp, his hand straying up to his face, still feeling the clay-like cold of Cas’s hand against his cheek, but find his fingers close on nothing. Stifling a shudder, he reaches up and wipes at the drops of icy cold sweat coursing down the sides of his face.  
  
The neon green glowing numbers on the face of the alarm clock on his nightstand read 2:15 am.   
  
Reaching for the brown bottle next to his alarm clock, Dean downs the flat contents leftover from a couple of hours previous, grimacing at the flavor as much as the temperature. Pressing the back of his hand against his pursed lips, he fights the urge to lunge for his sink and puke his guts out.   
  
Pushing himself out of his bed, his sets the bottle on the night stand with shaking fingers as he shuffles over to the sink. Fetching the small glass perched on the edge, he fills it will ice cold bunker well water and polishes it off in two hard, deep gulps, and then returns to his bed. Throwing himself onto the memory foam, he scoops up his phone as he goes, thumbing it on and scanning his notifications.  
  
A leaden weight settles into the pit of his stomach as he sees the notification from Raymond, letting him know that everything was set for the morning. One of Benny’s old (in both the literal and chronological senses) tug-boat buddies, back from when he was still human.   
  
Dean had taken a shot, since Raymond was the only person he knew who even knew how to drive a boat, much less owned one, and his dice roll had paid off. Ray had agreed to take him and his cargo out for three big. Plus a couple extra for looking the other way when Dean returned _without_ that very same cargo.  
  
Tossing his phone back onto the nightstand, Dean takes a deep breath and lets it out in a shaky exhale, forcing himself to close his eyes again as he folds his arms over his chest. Just a few more hours; he only had to hang on for a few more hours.  
  
It would all be over soon.


End file.
